Currently watching: Doctors Saikyou no Meii

I’m not a big fan of medical dramas. Hospitals are, by their very nature, dramatic places with lives being saved and lost while people struggle with their personal lives. To set a drama there almost seems too easy. The characters in these things are usually quite predictable, with the career-minded doctor, the naive newcomer and the well-meaning but otherwise anonymous nurse.

All of these are present and correct in Doctors, so I wasn’t going to bother with it but this guy kept saying how good it was, so I had to give it a try.

Perhaps the biggest difference to the usual medical drama is that the newcomer isn’t naive, but is already an expert surgeon. And an expert manipulator. For the first few episodes, he engineers arguments with his colleagues which in turn makes them do their job better and thus they learn a valuable lesson. If you think that such moralising can only be a turn-off, it is saved by the clever way the situations are set up, and by some winning performances.

The lead (played by Sawamura Ikki) is charming enough to make you believe that he’s able to get these people to do what he wants, but at the same time he has an coldness to him which makes him quite fascinating. His arch-rival in the show (played by Takashima Masanobu) is childish and played for chuckles and doesn’t seem to be much of a threat, yet it’s worth watching the show just for his reactions to the events as he slowly sees his influence slipping away.

A highly enjoyable show so far.